What Is Telehealth Psychiatry?

Telehealth psychiatry is outpatient psychiatric care delivered by secure video, not a watered-down version of an in-person visit. The clinical work is the same category of care: structured evaluation, diagnosis when appropriate, medication management, monitoring response over time, and coordination with your other clinicians when needed.

What changes is logistics. You meet from home, your car in a parked lot, or any private location where you can speak freely. For many adults, especially those managing work, caregiving, or the friction of leaving the house when symptoms are heavy, that reduction in friction is not a convenience feature. It is often what makes consistent follow-up possible.

Who Can Book a Washington Telehealth Psychiatrist?

State licensing rules matter more than where the provider's office is listed. I am licensed in Washington State (WA ARNP: ARNP.AP.70119009-NP). That means I can treat patients who are physically located in Washington at the time of each visit.

If you live in Spokane, Seattle, Tacoma, Vancouver, the Olympic Peninsula, or anywhere else in the state, you can book as long as you will be in Washington for the appointment. If you are traveling out of state, we reschedule until you are back. This is not bureaucratic fine print. It is the legal frame that keeps care legitimate.

This practice serves adults age 18 and older. It is telehealth only; there are no in-person visits.

PMHNP vs. Psychiatrist: Does It Matter for Medication Management?

Search results mix psychiatrists (MD/DO), psychiatric nurse practitioners (PMHNPs), and primary care clinicians who prescribe psychiatric medications. For outpatient medication management, the daily work can look similar: history, diagnosis, prescribing, follow-up, side-effect monitoring.

A PMHNP is a nurse practitioner with graduate training dedicated to psychiatric care and board certification through ANCC (PMHNP-BC). I hold that certification. The relevant question is less about the title on the badge and more about whether the clinician takes time to understand your history, reads prior records carefully, and adjusts treatment based on response rather than habit.

What Happens at the First Visit?

Most people start with a free 15-minute phone consultation. That call is a fit check, not a full evaluation. We talk about what you are dealing with, what you have already tried, and whether this practice's scope matches your needs.

If we proceed, the initial psychiatric evaluation is 60 minutes ($250). That hour is for structured history: symptoms, timeline, prior medications and what happened on each, medical contributors, sleep, substance use, trauma history when relevant, and what you are hoping medication management could realistically change.

Follow-up visits are 30 minutes ($150). I do not run the fifteen-minute medication-check model. Psychiatric medication is not a vending machine; it requires enough time to hear what has shifted since the last visit.

You can review full fee details on the patient handout or the pricing section of the main site.

What Conditions Does This Practice Treat?

This is a general outpatient psychiatric practice with depth in areas where I do a large share of my clinical work:

  • Depression when low mood, lost motivation, or repeated medication trials need a careful second look (depression care)
  • Anxiety and insomnia when worry and broken sleep keep reinforcing each other (anxiety & sleep care)
  • Trauma and PTSD when hypervigilance, nightmares, or avoidance sit underneath the symptoms (trauma care)
  • Veterans navigating transition, service-connected stress, grief, or sleep disruption (veterans care)
  • Bipolar disorder, grief, burnout, and adjustment after major life change

Every focus area has its own page on this site if you want condition-specific detail before booking.

What About Insurance?

Udoka Addy Psychiatry is a private cash-pay practice. I do not accept or bill insurance directly. After each visit, a superbill is available on request if you want to seek out-of-network reimbursement from your plan. Whether your plan pays anything back depends entirely on your policy; I cannot guarantee reimbursement.

Cash-pay is a deliberate structure. It keeps visit length under clinical control rather than payer control, and it keeps the practice small enough to run with unhurried appointments.

What Medications Does This Practice Prescribe?

I prescribe non-controlled psychiatric medications: antidepressants, mood stabilizers, non-controlled anxiolytics, sleep agents that are not controlled substances, and other standard outpatient psychiatric agents when clinically appropriate.

This practice does not prescribe controlled substances. That includes stimulants, benzodiazepines, and controlled sleep medications such as zolpidem. Controlled-substance prescribing is not part of this practice. If your treatment requires those classes of medication, you will need a different prescriber for that piece of care, and I can document what we are doing on my side so coordination stays clean.

Is Telehealth Psychiatry Effective?

For outpatient medication management, research and clinical experience both support telehealth as a legitimate delivery mode when the visit is long enough, the platform is secure, and follow-up is consistent. What telehealth cannot do is replace emergency care. This practice is not a crisis service. If you are in immediate danger, call 988 (press 1 for Veterans), call 911, or go to the nearest emergency department.

Good telehealth psychiatry should feel like someone is paying attention, not like you are being processed.

How to Book

If you are an adult in Washington State and the scope above sounds like what you need, start with the free consultation:

The consultation is enough to decide whether this is the right next step. You do not need a referral for cash-pay care, though I welcome referrals from therapists and primary care clinicians (referral information for clinicians).